


Taxes

by neveralarch



Series: Best_enemies comment fic [1]
Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: best_enemies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/pseuds/neveralarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short fic about tax filing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taxes

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Налоги](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5877160) by [Regis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regis/pseuds/Regis)



> Translated into Chinese by AloneOnGallifrey [here](http://tieba.baidu.com/p/3107107075?fr=wap&tb_device=pc&ie=utf-8).

When Peri walked into the console room, the Doctor was seated on the floor, papers strewn around him.

"Doctor? What are you doing?"

"Taxes, Peri, even I must do taxes. I'll be done in a few hours; why don't you find something to do until then?"

"I thought you were a renegade, or a president, or something," said Peri, ignoring the Doctor's attempts to get rid of her. "You shouldn't have to pay taxes."

"Unfortunately, the revenue service of Gallifrey doesn't see it that way. Better to just pay up than have them send their goons after me, wouldn't you think? No, please don't touch that-" Peri picked a couple of pages up off the floor.

"I just want to look. Why are they in English?"

"The TARDIS is translating, Peri, I'm sure I've told you about that before." The Doctor huffed and started scribbling on one of the pages in front of him as Peri read. Dull, legalese speak. Apparently tax forms were impossible to comprehend on any planet. About to give up and go away after all, Peri's eye was drawn by a particular passage.

"You've got me down as a dependent!"

"I feed you, I house you, I even clothe you when your shirts are inevitably destroyed by ravening beasts. I think I’ve earned a right to claim you as a dependent, and also it reduces what I have to pay by about five percent. It used to be more, but they keep reducing how much you can claim for humans. Call me paranoid, but I think they’re targeting me specifically."

Peri was about to complain some more when she noticed something else.

"Why've you listed the Master as your," she squinted, "'spouse/bonded-partner/sentient-symbiote/other'?"

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Well. We never really got around to a divorce after the separation." Peri frowned, but the Doctor kept talking. "It's easier to claim him when he's not being dead, of course, and it's a little awkward now that he's inhabiting another man's body, but my lawyer assured me that the revenuers will recognize that his consciousness remains the same."

"But he's an evil megalomaniac!"

"Yes," said the Doctor, blankly. "Did you just realize that? It took you an awful long time, Peri."

"I can't believe this."

"Peri, married Time Lords get a sizable tax break. Anyway, it’s easier to file a joint tax return than it is to expect the Master to remember to file his separately. Oh, would you remind me to ask him about his ill-gotten gains next time we foil one of his plots? I had to put an estimate for his income."

Peri decided never to ask the Doctor what he was doing ever again.


End file.
